JOIN USDelhi government schools adopt creative teaching
From “class libraries” and “noun games” to fathers meetings, the government school principals who attended the training programme at IIM Lucknow have now found innovative ways of improving the quality of education being imparted in their schools.
Around 60 school principals in two batches underwent a five days training programme to learn leadership and strategic management skills in April and May.
Sharing their experiences, the principals said that session was “one of its kinds” learning programme. The school heads have already charted out an action plan to implement the learning from the session to change the ways government schools in the capital function.
After coming from the session, Anju Chawla, Principal at Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya (SKV), Sultanpur, has started the concept of class libraries, under which students and teachers of all the classes bring story books, comics, etc to be kept in the classrooms in a carton box for the benefit of students.
Called as “pick a book and read”, the idea behind this is to inculcate reading habits among students.
“The school library has a lot of formalities such as returning the books within a stipulated time. Plus students go to the libraries once in every week. So apart from these, we have started class libraries so that students are free to read anytime. The books are also exchanged between sections and students can take them to playgrounds or their homes,” said Chawla.
The teachers are going through the content of the books to make sure the books are appropriate according to the age of children. “It is not that you can put anything in that box,” she added.
Similarly, Government Co-ed Senior Secondary School in Dwarka Sector 6 has started a unique method of teaching subjects.
The students in the primary classes are now being taught by developing their lessons into “fun games”.
For example, for teaching Math, the teachers have been asked to make use of board games and number games. Similarly there is a “noun game” for learning nouns.
Like the game of “dumb charades”, a student comes forward and enacts a noun and others have to identify. This way they learn to identity various parts of speech. After attending the session at IIM, the principal has also asked the teachers to conduct “model lessons” for their classes which will be attended by other teachers.
“It was an enriching experience at IIM Lucknow. There were programmes on creative learning and we are making the most of it in our schools,” said Principal Ritu Puri.
Conducting meetings with fathers is another change that many schools are adapting to. Instead of calling mothers, which they think are already well versed with their child’s learning curve, for “parents-teachers meet”, the schools are now calling fathers for interaction.
Similarly, Kavita Rana, Principal of SKV, Vasant Vihar said that she is going to start a system of “self analysis” for teachers in the school.
Many principals said that one of the most important takeaways from the session was “situational leadership”.
“We are going to make changes in leadership for strengthening our staff. We can’t be autocratic or democratic all the time,” Puri said.